News Internet Explorer market share plummets

I don't know, but

[sarcasm]
1) IE is very secure. The most secure of all - it's unsurpassed in terms of security!
2) IE is blazing fast! It annihilates all other browsers in terms of sheer speed. The Trident engine pretty much spears Gecko, Webkit and Presto.
3) IE supports anything and everything, unlike others, which supports much much less.
4) IE is the most efficient browser out of all.
5) IE is the most stable of all browsers.
[/sarcasm]

 

64 bit IE is probably the fastest.. just no flash =E

still use firefox but the 3.6+ builds are not as good as the old 3.5 builds and they took out the nice themes support- it's only a image you can embed in the header now, no more icons and scroll bar colors

I'd switch to IE 64 bit in a second if flash would make a 64 bit plugin for it

 

Personally use IE8. I've tried Firefox, Chrome, but eventually find my way back to Internet Explorer. I've had no issues with it whatsoever, it ties in nicely in terms of aesthetics with windows 7, and isn't much slower than the others mentioned imo. I honestly can't fault it, wheaeas I found FF ate memory for breakfast (important when youre workign day to day in AutoCAD/3ds Max and you need all the momory you can get on occasions) and more importantly I was always coming across sites that simply weren't written for the others.

When IE9 officially get's released, I'll more onto that and be content with my browsing life.

Also not a fan of using Ad blocking software, since just about every website out there relies on the revenue ads create, including bit-tech. If everyone started using an adblock plugin, do you think the advertisers would bother?

 

crazyceo.... the person i was expecting to see in this discussion... why is it that you are always in these discussions about MS and their stuff?

 

Well I always enjoy using the best operating systems and best internet browsers.....so pretty much everything with Microsoft before the name as all the other pretenders just don't cut the mustard.

rickysio, thanks for that I already knew it was good but you've expanded my knowledge even more.

 

if Microsoft are required to put a browser choice screen, how come Apple doesn't have to do the same?

 

yeah really.. it's because apple guys are foaming at the mouth already- choice would only confuse them XD

 

wow... I like microsoft products, but that is really very close minded, kind of cutting off you nose to spite your face there buddy.

 

Only if I hadn't used the alternatives.

 

IE tends to recieve a bad press, what with people still remembering the nightmare that was IE6 and so forth. Also, the average user tends to experience the worst side of IE, loaded down with toolbars and other rubbish so the OEM can pocket a few extra pence.

Having said that, though, I stick with firefox.

 

I find that hard to believe. Clearly 60% of computer users around the world are ignorant enough to still use IE, and you don't know any of them? Personally, everyone I know over the age of 25 still uses IE or has done previous to me persuading them to use something else.

 

IE works fine for me, and frankly I don't give a crap which application displays websites for me as long as it works.

I don't know anyone ignorant enough to think IE is so terrible that no one in their right mind could actually use it, oh wait ya I do hes called Stardagger.

64bit flash support would bee nice, though as it is IE 64bit is basically IE with ad block

 

I count no less than fourteen adblockers on the Chrome Extensions page. That might not be as good as 'officially supported' but since most of them use exactly the same technique and lists as FF I'll settle for it. For anyone worrying about depriving deserving sites of revenue, consider the 'whitelist' (mine includes all URLs ending 'bit-tech.net', for example).

Valid excuses reasons provided courtesy of the German Government, the French Government, the Australian Government, the New York Times etc etc ad nauseam. For a brief summary, IE is insecure, lazily coded, slow to respond to exploits and just slow. Those problems are compounded by the fact that IE is the default browser of people who do not understand computers; this vulnerable userbase means that IE is also the premier browser target of hacking, virii, and other internet nasties. It's not just most of the world's Governments and lots of the world's internet journalists saying that, personal experience also plays a part. I use Chrome for both my Mac and my 7 desktop (synchronised bookmarks and the like are useful) and loading IE on the thankfully rare occasions I am forced to use it takes in excess of 30 seconds, as opposed to click-open for Chrome.

+1. Whole family now uses Chrome, and the number of "Help, the internet doesn't work" calls has decreased exponentially.

 

I haven't checked in on chrome for a few months. Do they finally have an option to specify a proxy? On the windows version I used it would only use the proxies as they were defined for IE.

As for IE, I don't use it much at home, but at the office it is all we focus on supporting for our internal apps. Another browser in the office mix with 500 odd problematic employees would just drive me mad. Also simpler to control from AD group policy.

I'm fairly happy with FF for my own office and home PC, but I agree it'd be nicer if it felt like it fitted in with my Win7. That's the only thing really since I tend to look at the pages it is displaying rather than its window borders.

 

PureSilver
"Valid excuses reasons provided courtesy of the German Government, the French Government, the Australian Government, the New York Times etc etc ad nauseam. For a brief summary, IE is insecure, lazily coded, slow to respond to exploits and just slow. Those problems are compounded by the fact that IE is the default browser of people who do not understand computers; this vulnerable userbase means that IE is also the premier browser target of hacking, virii, and other internet nasties. It's not just most of the world's Governments and lots of the world's internet journalists saying that, personal experience also plays a part. I use Chrome for both my Mac and my 7 desktop (synchronised bookmarks and the like are useful) and loading IE on the thankfully rare occasions I am forced to use it takes in excess of 30 seconds, as opposed to click-open for Chrome."

How can you call that a valid reason when the same bodies instigated the questionable charges over Microsoft including their own browser in their own operating system. I would also ignore the governments from those countries who also HAVE issued warnings against Firefox AND Google! but let's ignore them like you have.

Google is the biggest adware slugfest on the market today and who said I had blinker vision?

 

As completely irrelevant as that is to this particular discussion - which is about why IE's share is declining, not about whether it's anticompetitive to ship your own browser with your own operating system, I happen to agree that it's stupid to force Microsoft to advertise other people's browsers in Windows. That doesn't, however, change the fact that since the brower choice screen was implemented the desertion of IE by Windows users has surged from a trickle to a flood, which is yet more evidence that many people don't really like IE. In addition, pointing out that this was forced upon Microsoft is merely name-calling to discredit the Government agencies validly publicising IE's well-known flaws. It's also wrong, because technically it was a court, not these cyber-police, that ordered the browser screen upon Microsoft.

As far as I can see, there has been only one Governmental alert about FireFox, from Germany, which was patched by the release of an entirely new revision of FF. I'm not saying that other browsers are immune to security flaws, I'm just pointing out that IE has such a constant wide and gaping variety that usually are picked up not by MS' internal security testers but instead by external forces. Anyway, Governments have only made one warning about Chrome - again, from the Germans - and that wasn't even a security vulnerability, it was a warning that using Chrome would allow Google to monitor your internet habits. Much as they do if you use, er, Google. To continue on that theme;

Google's business is advertising. What were you expecting, exactly? In return for trying to sell you things, you get a free search engine, free e-mail, calendar, translation, mapping, StreetView and countless other services, and a free browser. That might not sound like a fair deal to you, but you're going to get it if you use Google at all, not just if you use their browser. Your ISP is doing much the same thing. In addition, there's no ads in-browser, and even better, like any other browser, Chrome allows you to install Ad-Block. So there's no ads. Which invalidates your entire argument. By contrast, Microsoft charge you up front for IE; as in, you must pay some hundreds of dollars for the OS with which it is compatible. Free + adverts or expensive + no adverts, the choice is yours. Finally, I'd also like to dispute the use of the word 'slugfest' because it implies 'slow' and really when when I think 'slow' I think 'IE.'

 

Heh heh. Egg + face. When did chrome extensions appear anyway? There was me thinking there weren't any (there actually weren't the last couple of times I tried chrome). I'll install on one of those and give it another shot, I suppose.

As far as I know, the companies that advertise pay per redirect through the ad? So if you never click on banners anyway, it makes no difference if you block the ads. That's definitely the way some sites do it, as I've seen it explained, though I don't know if it's universally true.

I'm really picky with my browsers, as I am with most things I use on my pc. I have firefox customised with some very specific addons I've hard a hard time finding equivalents for elsewhere, meanwhile I also have addons giving me the key features of other browsers within firefox (fast dial etc). I don't see myself moving to another browser any time soon - and if I did, it would be chrome, not internet explorer.

 

Just install a windows 7 skin? There are loads of them out there. <Resists temptation to say over 9000>.

 

If I see an Offender, I educate him (or her) and then their erroneous ways are healed.

REPENT IE HERETICS!!! REPENT!

 

Here in the UK it's actually 70% IE users and the EU forced browser choice didn't change that much apparently. So the UK is again showing the world again the right way to go. Well done the UK and well done Microsoft for giving us the only choice the world has for the best internet browser.